La Liga: Madrid beat Espanyol 2-1 in Mourinho’s first game on return

Real Madrid won 2-1 against Espanyol in La Liga, marking Jose Mourinho's first game back in charge of the team. According to Yahoo Sports, Jude Bellingham opened the scoring for Los Blancos, but Alex Calatrava levelled for Espanyol. The win was secured in the 90th minute with a goal from substitute Carlos Espi.

The game was Mourinho's first competitive match of his second spell as Real Madrid manager, 13 years after he left the club. As per Yahoo Sports, he started with a strong lineup including Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, and Bellingham, and also handed debuts to new signings Bernardo Silva, Denzel Dumfries, and Ibrahima Konate.

Mourinho was quoted by Yahoo Sports as saying that he thought his team deserved to win, but Espanyol didn't deserve to lose. The outcome was confirmed by multiple sources, including Punch Nigeria and BBC Sport, which both reported a 2-1 victory for Real Madrid.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch Nigeria, Punch, Yahoo Sports, BBC Sport — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.